Egypt's prosecution authorities have begun investigating complaints filed against Egypt's ousted former president Mohamed Morsi, accusing him of conspiring to kill peaceful protesters and inciting violence. The investigation comes despite objections from the UN and from foreign countries including the US and some western European states, particularly Germany, which have stepped up pressure on the Egyptian military and Interim President Adli Mansour to release Morsi from detention. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle has asked for the restrictions on Morsi to be lifted and for international human rights organisations to be given access to him. The same position has been adopted by the US State Department. Morsi was put under house arrest after being ousted from power on 3 July, and he is believed to be held in the headquarters of the Republican Guard in eastern Cairo. Foreign Ministry officials indicated this week that Morsi was being held in a “safe place and is being treated with complete dignity”. On 13 July, Deputy Prosecutor General Adel Al-Said announced that a number of lawyers, political activists and citizens had filed complaints against Morsi and other leading Brotherhood officials, accusing them of manslaughter, conspiracy to kill protesters, inciting their members to attack military buildings and causing harm to the national economy. The list of other Brotherhood defendants includes the group's Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie, the former supreme guide Mahdi Akef, the former parliamentary spokesman Essam Al-Erian, the chairman of the Brotherhood's Cairo office Mohamed Al-Beltagui, and the group's media spokesman Mahmoud Ghozlan. It also includes Essam Sultan, a lawyer and an official of the Brotherhood-affiliated Wasat Party. On Sunday, the state prosecutor also ordered a freeze on the finances of 14 Brotherhood leaders, including Badie, Al-Erian, Al-Beltagui, and Deputy Supreme Guide Khairat Al-Shater. Al-Said indicated that “these suits are being examined and will be followed up by investigating Morsi and the other defendants.” Some of the complaints were filed by the 6 April revolutionary movement, accusing Morsi and the other defendants of inciting Brotherhood activists to kill peaceful protesters near Cairo University on 5 July. Arrest warrants were issued for the men on 10 July, with east Cairo's prosecutor-general, Mustafa Khater, ordering the police to detain many Brotherhood leaders so that they could be investigated on charges of inciting violence and launching armed attacks against army personnel and buildings on 8 July. Meanwhile, the newly-appointed Prosecutor-General Hisham Barakat met on 11 July with Khaled Mahgoub, chairman of the Ismailia Appeals Court, which ruled on 23 June that Morsi and 33 other Brotherhood officials should be investigated on charges of spying and instigating contacts with foreign elements during the early days of the 25 January Revolution with the aim of spreading chaos by storming prison buildings, torching police stations and killing Egyptian citizens. Al-Said said that “Barakat received a complete dossier of evidence against Morsi and other Brotherhood officials, including CDs showing how foreign elements had stormed prisons, Morsi's telephone call with the Qatari-based channel Al-Jazeera after his escape from the Wadi Al-Natroun prison, and detailed security reports about the storming of several prisons during the 25 January Revolution.” On 9 July, the Ismailia Appeals Court released a report on its 23 June ruling, saying that Morsi and 33 other leading Brotherhood officials had been arrested on 27 January, 2011, on charges of spying and contacting foreign elements from Hamas, Hizbullah and the Palestinian Jihad movement with the aim of launching terrorist acts in Egypt in the form of storming prisons, torching police stations, and killing Egyptian citizens. The court quoted Mohamed Negm, a police officer with the former State Security Apparatus (SSA), as testifying that “while I was in charge of putting Morsi and the other 33 Brotherhood leaders in jail after they had been detained on the charge of spying, Hamdi Hassan, one of the group's leading officials, threatened me by saying that the SSA would soon be dissolved, that the Brotherhood leaders would be released from prison within hours, and that the Muslim Brotherhood would soon take power in Egypt.” The court also cited Mohamed Hanafi, another SSA official, who said that elements from Hamas and Hizbullah had stormed the prisons of Wadi Al-Natroun north of Cairo and Abu Zaabal and Al-Marg east of Cairo on 29 and 30 January, 2011, in a bid to release Islamist detainees from these prisons, including those affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. “The attackers wore masks, spoke Palestinian Arabic, and were heavily armed,” Hanafi said. The court cited Hanafi as saying that the “SSA was surprised to find Mohamed Morsi speaking on the phone to Al-Jazeera on 29 January, telling the Qatari channel that they had been released from the Wadi Al-Natroun prison by people dressed like civilians.” In Hanafi's words, “Morsi told Al-Jazeera immediately after his escape that “more than 100 people exerted efforts to open the prison for more than four hours, and once we were out we found the courtyard was empty and we only saw the group that had been trying to break down the gates.” Morsi also told Al-Jazeera that he had been one of more than 30 Brotherhood officials who had been released from their cells by people they did not know. Hanafi said that “what Morsi told Al-Jazeera was completely untrue. The fact is that the prison guards were surprised by convoys of armed vehicles and earthmoving equipment that attacked them.” Hanafi was cited as naming two Brotherhood members as conspirators in the attack on the Wadi Al-Natroun prison, along with Hamas and Hizbullah members. He said that Ibrahim Haggag and Sayed Ayad, two Brotherhood contractors from the nearby Sadat city, had been involved with “foreign elements that violated the sovereignty of the Egyptian state, in addition to releasing terrorists and thousands of prisoners who are a danger to society.” Former interior minister Mahmoud Wagdi was also cited in the report as saying that prisons in Egypt were well-guarded and that it would be difficult for any attackers to storm them. “The SSA reports show that masked forces from Hamas, Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad, the Al-Qassam Brigades and Sinai Bedouins infiltrated Egypt, and that on their way to the prisons they received help from Brotherhood officials,” Wagdi said. Al-Said said that the State Security Prosecution had been put in charge of the case and that it was now gathering evidence, but that no charges had yet been officially filed against Morsi. Some press reports have asserted that State Security Prosecutors have asked officials from the military about the whereabouts of Morsi so that he can be interrogated. According to Abdel-Rehim Ali, editor of Al-Bawabanews.com, “Morsi also faces the prospect of being tried for spying for the US and Turkey,” telling a television interview that “when the young revolutionary movements announced that they would organise massive protests on 25 January 2011, the US, Turkey and Muslim Brotherhood moved quickly in a bid to exploit these protests in their favour.” As a result and some days ahead of the 25 January Revolution, Morsi and other Brotherhood officials visited Turkey where a meeting between them and the CIA was arranged, Ali said. “The scenario was that the Muslim Brotherhood, which the Western media likes to describe as the most organised force in Egypt, should move quickly to ride the wave of the revolution and come to power,” he added, saying that “many in the West and in the US took it at that time that the Muslim Brotherhood was the best force in Egypt capable of restoring order on the streets and maintaining the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.” Ammar Ali Hassan, a political analyst, told Al-Ahram Weekly that “no one can give the final say on whether Morsi was a spy. What is sure is that Morsi will be investigated and then put on trial, but what is not sure is whether he was really involved in spying activities because most of the information and evidence available is not complete or is unclear.” Ammar said that “the decision to question Morsi signals that the military is not concerned by the international pressure and that measures to legally pursue Morsi will go on irrespective of these reactions.” Ammar said that the fact that the Gulf countries of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait had welcomed the 30 June Revolution, following it with announcements of generous assistance to Egypt “has emboldened the military to ignore appeals for Morsi's release.” The opposition group Tamarod, which led the 30 June Revolution that eventually ousted Morsi, announced that it would organise massive protests this coming Friday in a bid to have Morsi put on trial.
